We, the created, echo the Creator.
Oh what a beautiful echo a ring is. Think of it, rock and metal, made by the Creator, dug of the earth and wrought into beauty by the created. We, the created echoing the Creator.
With every fiber, every strand of twisting molecules, we imitate. Into the passing stream of changing light marked by spinning rock and burning star we reach and we grasp for what we cannot hold and we mold it and define it and divide it and number it and name it.
This, our creation, becomes the marker of our remembrances. We circle in red and count down and cross off and turn the page to start again. He created order out of chaos; we create order out of calendars. When numbers become dates, they also become something we can all share. Think about it – the 1st? the 4th? the 11th? the 25th? They all mean something to you don’t they?
So it was the advent, the coming, approaching the 25th. We, the four of us, we were tired and crossing off squares on the calendar until they, the two of them, would be ours again for the few numbered days at the very end of the calendar. Tired souls, weary of what didn’t fit us, weary of what we didn’t fit. Still, we celebrated with them, circled a number in red and then waited to cross if off.
We gathered together with them in a room full of tables and folding chairs and students and cold hard floors and bright fluorescent lights and we ate together and marked time until it was over. Outside the sky was grey and wet and cold but inside, my oldest sat on my lap and we watched the others and laughed and held hands.
His boyish hand fidgeted and twisted her ring on my finger, the one she wore for years, the one her mother wore, the one that breaks sunlight into rainbows. I leaned forward and whispered in his ear to be still, to leave the rainbow maker alone.
Thumb reached under palm and felt it, the comfort of having a little part of her here with me. I noticed that even fluorescent light can be fragmented and reflected and made beautiful.
I wear it on my right hand, the hand that paints and draws and writes and creates, and it reminds me of her hands that cooked and sewed and loved and created.
The food was cleared and the chairs were pushed away and we were released out into the wetness weeping from the sky and the cold growing colder still and the grey turning to black.
Then, a flurry of stops between us and home to conserve on “trips to town”… stop to fill the tank at the gas station; stop to drop off bags of warm-but-worn winter clothes at the shelter that looks as ragged and bruised as the people it serves.
Stop to visit to the old lady with the black iron kettle to see if by chance the price had slipped down into the “affordable” range yet. We chat. She makes remarks about both rings, the one he gave me and the one she left me. Kettle is still too expensive to come home to my house.
And with each stop the yearning to put the traffic and the noise and the hurry and the not fitting in and the cold and the wet and the dark behind us increases, and I crave the dry warmth of my home and weary shoulders dropping their burden at the door and the promise of tails wagging in greeting and cupped hands holding hot coffee and cream.
For just a moment I appreciate the beauty of taillights reflected on wet asphalt and the hiss of tires spewing fallen clouds.
Still one more stop and the miles disappear behind us, and home gets closer with every carol on the radio, and the sky sags lower and colder and wetter and the pine trees are inky black shadows just past the reach of headlights.
And now… only one mile to go and it will all be worth it, everything will be behind me, and all that matters will be with me!
Then, out of nowhere, I feel it – rather, I don’t feel it. The rainbow maker, the ring. Chest tightens, heart skips, and in a sliver of a second, my eyes witness what my hand already knows. It’s gone. I felt my heart begin to ache just a little with the weight of loss, the thought of losing another piece of her.
So close…
but the warmth and wagging and respite will have to wait.
I call him and words tumble and I tell him and he interrupts his journey home so he can help me. I turn the truck around and begin the miserable journey back to town. Every cell in me calls out for home, but I try to believe that if I get back quick enough then it can’t get too lost.
I call him and words tumble and I tell him and he interrupts his journey home so he can help me. I turn the truck around and begin the miserable journey back to town. Every cell in me calls out for home, but I try to believe that if I get back quick enough then it can’t get too lost.
A careful re-trace of e-v-e-r-y s-i-n-g-l-e s-t-e-p of our journey… back to the little old lady with the black kettle, scour her parking lot, look under her tables, behind her doors…
Back to the shelter and the homeless open the bags, search the pockets, study the sidewalk with me in the light of headlights hoping for the glint of a rainbow…THEY, the unloved, help me.
Back, eventually to the school. He’s there waiting for me and I don’t feel alone anymore.
The doors are locked, but a light is on in the side hall and a knock on the window rewards us with entry. Tables and chairs are stacked against the walls now. Floors have been swept and the dust and dirt and crumbs- and maybe the ring? - fill monstrous green containers in line for removal. We search. Everywhere. E-v-e-r-y trash bag. E-v-e-r-y corner. E-v-e-r-y hallway.
Nothing. What a hollow feeling, to admit defeat.
Again, we walk out under the weeping sky. He hugs me in the rain and I shiver and I look into his beautiful blue eyes. “It’s really just rock and metal, right? The important thing is that I had her for so long, right?” Quiet pause and another hug and a kiss on my face and “Well, yes, but it’s really important rock and metal.”
"Oh what a beautiful echo a ring is."
We head for home – again.
What to do with my hurting heart on the long drive home? What else could I do but take the broken to the Creator and ask Him to fix it? So as I drove the miles again, I talked to Him, looked for perspective, argued that it was really only rock and metal after all, hoped that a call would come saying it had been found, prayed that such a reminder of beauty and love wouldn’t end up in a place of darkness…and I hear it in my spirit – “in all things give thanks.”
And finally I thanked Him.
I thanked Him for her
and for all the love
and for all the years
and for markers of remembrance
and for the ring.
And yes, between talking and looking and arguing and hoping and praying and thanking…I cried. Just a few tears, but they were wet.
At last, wheels grind to a halt on wet gravel and weary souls climb stairs to a dark but warm home. With every step burdens shed and contentment kindles.
The key in the door sparks a chorus of rowdy barks and excited whines and yes, wagging tails, and we expect it every time but we laugh new.
And somehow, through the thanking, sadness becomes expectation but of what I do not know… maybe a renewed satisfaction with the days that grind? Dishes that dirty? Boys that grow? Husband that loves?
Cut the light on in the hall and leave a trail of dropped bags and damp boot-prints on the wood behind me. I’m free now, unencumbered. With every step, thankfulness grows and expectation grows and loss dissipates. He has healed and I trust him to keep healing.
Even though it is gone, a marker of my remembrance of her, I feel the healing in my heart. Tired and refreshed at once I cut on the light in our room. Husband follows, not sure of where I am or how I’m feeling.
Even though it is gone, a marker of my remembrance of her, I feel the healing in my heart. Tired and refreshed at once I cut on the light in our room. Husband follows, not sure of where I am or how I’m feeling.
There’s a drawer that holds rings, necklaces, earrings, bracelets. My fingers curl under the pull, my face turns toward my wondering husband and I smile, almost laugh and say, “OK! I’m ready for a miracle!”
Muscles and nerves and sinew work together and I pull the drawer open as I’ve done for years, the same drawer I’ve opened since before I was tall enough to see in it.
There, in the little hand painted dish on the right-hand side of the drawer where I keep her ring and the ring he gave me…
There it was.
The rainbow-maker. Her ring. The ring my oldest played with just hours ago. The one he twisted on my finger. The one the little old lady noticed. The one I lost, the one I searched for, wept for, prayed for, gave thanks for!
There it was!
And I am consumed, swept away, by this incredible love He has for me. Me, the tired one, the undeserving one, the one who grumbles over dirty dishes and crayon crumbles and chalk dust and lost socks and scattered books, the one who cries over lost metal and rock, ME!
I am the receiver of grace beyond belief. I cry and I try to understand and I can’t. So I inhale deep the awe and laugh gratitude and amazement and wonder and cry thanks and close the drawer quietly.
I am the receiver of grace beyond belief. I cry and I try to understand and I can’t. So I inhale deep the awe and laugh gratitude and amazement and wonder and cry thanks and close the drawer quietly.
And there, in the presence of a miracle, the old and ordinary sheds its skin and becomes new. Suddenly the scales are peeled back and I see miracles all around me.
Open the drawer again, just to see… if it really happened? if it’s still there? It is. Back to the kitchen to start the coffee and feed the dogs and wash the dishes and pick up backpacks and the books and the socks before I can collapse and clock-out.
Open the drawer again, just to see… if it really happened? if it’s still there? It is. Back to the kitchen to start the coffee and feed the dogs and wash the dishes and pick up backpacks and the books and the socks before I can collapse and clock-out.
And I have only begun to ponder what I’ve just experienced.
A year has passed and it’s time for carols on the radio again. It has taken many months and the words of a girl I’ve never met but who I think I know- a girl who writes of afternoon light and chasing the moon and piles of laundry and eucharisteo – it takes her words to open my eyes to the glorious upside down economy of God and the amazing truth that thanksgiving precedes the miracle! p.128 “eucharisteo always precedes the miracle.”
She writes and I read and re-read and with every page I turn I scribble notes and underline and dog-ear page after page and I drink it in, this miracle of eucharisteo. She tells me that suffering delivers grace and grace overcomes suffering. And I know it is true. I suffered, if only for a short while, and grace was delivered and is being delivered every day and it overcame, and still overcomes, my suffering.
Thanks and expectation gave birth to a miracle and I witnessed it. It awes and humbles.
